


i've given up thinking, since feeling is first

by orbiting_saturn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:32:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbiting_saturn/pseuds/orbiting_saturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his dreams, Sam walks with Cas. The landscapes change, sometimes something new, sometimes something old. What doesn't change is that Cas is always there, standing between him and the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've given up thinking, since feeling is first

**Author's Note:**

> This story assumes that the wall was built to shield Sam from Hell, but _not_ from the things his body did without him. There is some one-sided UST with Sam and Dean.

There's this disconnect now, between Sam's heart and his brain. For too long his body has been without the conscientiousness that comes from a soul. It does these things, twitches towards the natural conclusion, the logical next step, without care for what is moral and right. And Sam's soul is rusty with disuse so that sometimes he finds himself aiming his gun at the wrong time and the wrong person. He seems to always be about 1.3 seconds behind his body. It doesn't sound like a very long delay, but in his line of business, Sam knows that time could mean the difference between life and death.

Just as the body remembered things from when it was ensouled, Sam remembers the things his body did without him. It's strange, that he now sees himself as two separate people, Sam-with-a-soul and Sam-without-a-soul. But that's fair and that's true, he was not the same man without his soul.

And if struggling with the impulses of his body weren't bad enough, Sam has to contend with the shuddering white-noise itch in the back of his head. He knows it's the wall, feels it like a shimmering mirage at the heel end of his psyche, calling out to be poked and scratched at; always there, this false thing built out of nothing but Death's intent.

The wall is more of a liability than his body, which tries to protect him from it. When he gets the overwhelming urge to nuzzle against it, his body jerks him back with other demands. The needs of the body; for action, to fight or fuck or eat or piss.

Dean is ever vigilant now, watching Sam for that far-off look in his eye, for the pause and silence that signals his curious inner struggle. But Dean is only a man, with a body and soul and needs of his own. When Dean sleeps, Cas comes. He walks with Sam in dreams, steals time from his war to protect him and that warms Sam in strange and grateful ways.

The relationship between Dean and his angel is more strained than Sam ever remembers it being. Even more than those first months when the two were smashing against each other, Castiel with his Heavenly intent and Dean with his selfish humanity. Their only commonality is a desire to hold Sam together, to keep his wall in place and his three parts tied together.

When Dean and Cas clash, it makes Sam nervous, makes him long for the days when the apocalypse was looming and the two of them were close in ways Sam will never quite understand.

~*~*~

"Do you really think that Dean should have left my soul in the cage?" Sam asks Cas. They talk in dreams. Sam is swinging in a hammock, something he's never done in his real life. Cas sits cross-legged on the too-green watercolor grass, trench coat spilling out around him. He's placed himself between Sam and wavering wall that looms off in the distance.

Cas plucks a yellow dandelion and twirls it thoughtfully, doesn't even glance at Sam when he says, "No. I was being selfish."

Before Sam can question the angel, he wakes. Dean is sitting on the floor between their beds, with his knees drawn up. "You watchin' me sleep again, creeper?" Sam croaks out with a fond smile in his voice.

Dean ignores the question and scrubs both hands down his tired face. He's starting to look old. Sam thinks Dean wears the age well, it roughens up the pretty features that made him hard to take seriously. The more broken his brother is, the more beautiful he looks. It doesn't seem right to Sam. "What did you and Cas talk about?" Dean asks in a tired, gritty voice.

"Theoretical physics," Sam deadpans and throws off his covers. He crouches down in the tight space with Dean; knees spread open around his brother and pressed into the cheap motel carpet. "You gotta get some sleep, Dean," he tells him gently.

"Don't wanna," Dean mumbles into his knees like a petulant child. "I fuckin' hate it there."

~*~*~

Sam stays awake the rest of the night, kneeling cold in that empty floor space, watches his big brother twitch and whimper in his sleep. The following morning he leans Dean against the bathroom sink and smears shaving cream against his shadowy jaw. They haven't done this since Sam was in high school, but the slight tremors in Dean's wrists had made him nervous.

Tiled walls make the small space cool and quiet, too intimate and Dean's lips look startlingly pink with the smudges of white all around them. "Not gonna kiss me, are ya?" Dean jokes with a twisting smirk that doesn't reach his eyes.

"Not until you brush your teeth, sweetheart," Sam ribs back. It's never really occurred to him before, but now that Dean has brought it up, he can't think of anything else. He focuses instead on the scrape of the razor over the curve of Dean's jaw.

When Sam leaves to let Dean shower, the motel room feels too open and wide. His heart rate is jackrabbit fast for no discernible reason. All alone, he gets flashes from his time without a soul, when he was just a body. His eyes had followed Dean. Watched him sleep. Thought about crawling into bed with him and pinning him down with hands and cock. It never once thought about sucking on those pretty pink lips the way Sam just had.

~*~*~

Sam falls asleep in the passenger seat of the Impala and stays there. In his dream, Cas is driving and Sam thinks it's adorable for some reason. The angel doesn't lean into the door or curl his fingers comfortably around the steering wheel. He's upright, ten and two, eyes on the road. Downright adorable.

"Has Dean ever let you drive her?" Sam asks curiously. He pulls his knee up on the seat between them, lets it press into the heat of Cas' thigh.

"No," Cas replies, eyes still safely on the road ahead of them. Sam spares it a glance and it's lined with leafy trees, maybe somewhere in Virginia. "But he's thought about it."

"Do you ever visit Dean's dreams?"

There's a pause and Castiel's very blue gaze flickers to Sam for the first time. Maybe it's that everything has seemed precious since his return from Hell, but Sam loves to look at Cas. He eats him up with his eyes and the angel never seems uncomfortable under Sam's scrutiny, never tells him to take a picture or makes cracks about kissing the way Dean does.

"I'm not welcome there," Cas finally answers after a time.

"Why don't you two just fuck and get it over with?" Sam wonders aloud. He can say whatever he wants to in his dreams, without need for embarrassment. It's _his_ dream after-all and Cas is just a visitor.

"I could ask you the same question."

Sam laughs at that. If he weren't dreaming, he'd blush and get defensive. He's starting to really like here.

~*~*~

Dean gets knocked around by an angry spirit on their next hunt. And then suffers a concussion when a rougarou throws him into a wall on the next one. He gets seventeen stitches from a gremlin and that's about when Sam says 'enough's enough'.

"You're off your game, man. We both are. If we keep going like this, we're gonna get ourselves killed!" Sam argues against Dean's bluster.

His brother is stomping around the hotel room, right arm hugged up around his bare waist because using it tugs at the stitches across his chest. Dean's pretty good with his left hand though and when he chucks the remote at Sam's head, it very nearly hits him.

But Dean doesn't fight like he means it when Sam pushes him into the passenger seat the next day. He drives through three states on back roads with the windows down. The heat-heavy air of the south is soothing, blanketing and fragrant.

~*~*~

The place they rest is off the beaten path, it's old and rundown, like they're used to, but Caleb had it stocked with rock salt, talismans and sigils from every ancient language. There's only one bed, but since they usually sleep in shifts these days, that's not a problem. Doesn't stop Sam from wanting to crawl in with Dean when the clipped morning air sneaks between the cracks of the cabin. He'd be warm and smell like nightmare sweat, bitter but familiar.

Sam is still one second behind the cravings of his body, still catches himself twitching towards a punch or a grapple. More often than not stumbling over his own two feet to keep from leaping at his brother.

Dean barely wears a shirt anymore. He joins Sam in his workouts now, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, jogs through the sweltering woods. He's losing all of that softness he gained from his time with Lisa, built up by home cooking and a largely sedentary life, the kind Sam never thought Dean would have and always wanted for him. Sam doesn't think Dean misses Lisa nearly as much as he misses Ben. But he doesn't know for sure because Dean never, _never_ talks about them.

Ignoring the desire to ask questions is easier than ignoring the way Dean's jeans sit too low, the cut of his hipbones shadowing his pale soft skin. He wishes Dean would put his fucking shirt on occasionally. And that his body hadn't put such disturbing thoughts into his head back when his soul wasn’t looking.

~*~*~

"Can't we get just a little closer," Sam asks Cas in his dreams. He's staring longingly over the angel's shoulder.

"No."

"I just want to see what it's made of," he tries to reason. They're in a field that doesn't look like any field he's ever seen before. It's harshly bright, like it's painted in Technicolor, some deleted scene from the Wizard of Oz. Sort of makes him wonder if this is actually a nightmare, with how uncomfortable it makes him.

"No."

The wall looks like a rising mountain tonight, but it's strangely two dimensional, a painted backdrop rather than jagged rising rocks that one could scale.

"Sam," Castiel say firmly, cups his cheeks with both hands and drags his gaze back down. "Don't think of it. Just stay with me."

Sometimes in his dreams, Sam can see an aura surrounding Cas, like an echo of his true being bursting through the seams of his vessel. He knows on some level that the angel doesn't need to appear to him in the form of Jimmy Novak, could come to him in any form he chose, but they like this one, Sam and Cas both.

"I need to claw at something," Sam tells him in a voice so rough it hardly seems like his own. "Let me touch you."

"If you wish," Cas concedes with a nod. "I can be your wall tonight."

When Sam gets his hands on Cas, he doesn't feel anything like a wall. He feels intangible, no matter how hard Sam grips him.

He awakes gasping and hard. Dean shifts in his seat by the window and gives him a look, one that says he knows that Sam is aroused and is pretty damned annoyed at the implications. Of course, he doesn't say anything. Dean never does.

~*~*~

Dean is ready to leave the cabin, tired of the quiet and the way he only has Sam for company. He gets restless fast, starts suggesting they track down a hunt, calling Bobby and small-talking the poor man half to death because Dean can't settle.

Sam would find it funny if he weren't just a little hurt. After everything Dean went through to get him back in his body and he can't even spend a week in his company.

"You're not still scared of me, are you?" Sam asks his brother, halting him from pacing a hole in the floorboards of the warped porch.

Dean stops and stares, blinking his heavy lashes slowly over freckled cheeks. "Scared? What the hell're you talking about?"

Sam's looming, standing probably a shade too close. It makes him all too aware of how ridiculously large he is, the way he dwarfs his big brother. Dean isn't a small man, but in the shadow of Sam's body he looks so vulnerable, not weak, just less than.

Dean's jaw ticks when he clenches his teeth. His pupils dilate and his nostrils flare. Sam recognizes the signs because he knows Dean, knows him better than he knows himself. That's really all the answer he needs.

"Never mind," Sam says and backs off. "Forget I said anything."

He might have cried if he still knew how.

~*~*~

"Can you do me a favor?" Sam asks, raising his voice to be heard over the wind and carnival music.

He and Cas are squeezed into a rocking ferris wheel seat, stopped at the top with a vast body of water stretched out before them. It's night, but the lights from below reach far and wide, flashes and dings, people laughing and shouting in excitement. Just on the horizon of the glassy black lake, there are more dotted lights from the far shore.

"Between you and your brother, it's a wonder I have time for anything _but_ doing favors," Cas replies. He looks crankier than usual, smooshed into the side of the car, half leaning off the side to accommodate the width of Sam's shoulders. He'd probably be more comfortable if Sam stretched his arm out over the back, but this is already feeling too much like a date. Sam doesn't think Cas would be amused if he pulled the 'yawn and stretch' move on him.

He ignores the sting of Cas' words and continues on. "Think you could stop by for a little while? I mean in real life. Come see me and Dean in the flesh, so to speak."

Cas gives a tired sigh and tries to twist his head to meet Sam's gaze. It's too cramped for the mile-long stare that the angel usually employs. "Sam, it's hard for me to find time for even this. There is still a war in Heaven. My brothers need me too."

"I want off of this fucking ferris wheel," Sam grumbles and squirms. It's too tight, too close and he sort of wishes Castiel would fuck off too.

"I want whiskey," Cas says and wraps his long, pretty fingers around Sam's wrist. "When I come for my visit, will you give me whiskey?"

The ferris wheel moves then, a slow descent, but the carnival is gone. The ground below looks like bubble wrap lain over spilt blood. Sam wakes shaking.

~*~*~

Could be a giant waste of money, but Sam buys a whole case of Johnny Walker the next time he and Dean go into town. That’s for Cas, just in case he shows up. For Dean, he picks up a tri-tip and a bag of red potatoes to throw on the grill.

"Plan on drinking yourself to death, Sammy?" Dean asks with a quirked brow as he's loading up the trunk of the Impala. "Be a mighty shame, if after everything, you went out choking on your own sick."

Sam pulls a wide smile on his brother, flashing teeth and dimples to distract Dean. It works like it always does, Dean's smirk slips into a mirroring grin, half as broad as it used to be, but still there. Sam throws in a one-shouldered shrug and says, "Just stocking up. I like to be prepared for anything."

He doesn't want to tell Dean that he's hoping for a visit from Cas, doesn't want him disappointed if it doesn't happen. Or to hear the speech that it _ain't gonna_ and that he should thank his lucky stars that he gets as much out of Cas as he does.

Dean would have Cas give them everything, all of himself and every angel in his garrison to boot. What Dean doesn't seem to get is that Cas already gave him his everything once and got fuck-all in return. Sam has never seen Dean be so selfish as he is with Cas.

Late spring in South Carolina is hotter than mid-summer in most places. When they climb into the Impala, her seats are scorching and Sam drags the back of his bare arm away with a hiss. "She give you a love bite, princess?" Dean asks with a sloppy halfway smile. "I think my girl missed you, Sammy. Didn't you, baby?" he adds while stroking the dashboard with a loving caress.

A surprised laugh punches out of Sam and this time it's not forced. The car growls low and raunchy, a smooth hum of satisfaction to match Dean's when he spins the wheel and peels away from the curb. Sam is thrown back in his seat, still grinning, hot wind slapping his face and drying his lips. He's reminded of times past, states away, heat-baked highways and Motorhead beating from the speakers. If he clings tightly, he might get to keep this feeling.

~*~*~

Dean's shirt is off again, sweat beading on freckled shoulders to slide down the center of his back and disappear into the low waist of his jeans. The heat coming off the grill shimmers the air around him and Sam sprawls on the sagging steps of the front porch, watches through squinted lids while sipping lazily at his cold beer. It's an imported something or other, pinch of an orange squeezed past the lip by Dean's blunt finger.

"Enjoying the show, Sammy?" Dean calls back without looking, hunter instincts pinging to the sensation of being watched. He idly stabs at the smoking slab of beef with a two-pronged barbecue fork.

Sam's lips twitch up in a smirk, he delays answering with another sip. "Actually, yeah," he finally says honestly, _surprised_ by his honesty.

Dean's head twists on his neck, he peers suspiciously at Sam through the corner of one eye. "Dude. Are you checking out my ass?"

Sam's leaning back on one elbow, the wood surface gritty enough to be a little uncomfortable, but not unbearably so. "Well, I wasn't, but now that you mention it. Objectively speaking, it's a pretty nice ass."

There's a pinched, disbelieving look on Dean's face when he finally turns around. "Okay, first off, _what the hell, dude?!_ And second, my ass is _way awesome_ , not just 'pretty nice'."

Sam has always loved Dean to an unhealthy degree and his brother has proven more than once that his attachment to Sam goes above and beyond a normal family connection. He knows that people talk about them; angels, demons, other hunters, all making assumptions about their relationship. Motel clerks, baristas, witnesses in their cases all read something into their closeness. There's enough people seeing this thing between them that Sam has been forced to consider it, to wonder if he could ever lay his hands on his brother and have it mean what they think it means.

It's a matter of self-preservation to shut these thoughts down at the onset. It isn't that they disgust him, though Sam is more than aware that they _should_. It's just that he's already given so much of himself to his brother and vice versa that there's this greedy need to keep something of his own.

Still, since Sam's soul was returned from Hell, he's caught himself staring at Dean in new ways, like he can't help where his gaze falls. Sam has always known in some detached way that his brother is good-looking, but it's only now that he can appreciate the primal beauty of Dean's body.

Maybe he's feeling too comfortable right now. It has occurred to Sam on more than one occasion that he is almost constantly on-guard when he's around Dean. That suddenly feels incredibly and horribly _wrong_. "I fucked guys when I didn't have a soul," he blurts out, words tumbling in a mess from his beer-slicked lips. "Like, five of them!"

Dean's eyebrows shoot up so fast it's almost funny. Sam huffs out a laugh at Dean's expression. He keeps babbling nervously, "I never did that before. I never even experimented in college, but then…. Soul gone. Body wants what it wants, I guess."

"Why are you telling me this, Sam?" Dean asks, eyes shuttered, face hard.

Sam gives a loose shrug, his sudden amusement draining away as rapidly as it hit him. "Who else am I gonna tell?"

Dean's face softens again and he blinks his glittery eyes when a stray beam of sunshine hits them. It filters through the heavy tree branches, casts leafy shadows on Dean's cheeks. One corner of his mouth tucks up in a half-hearted smirk. "Guess I just figured the wandering eyes would stop once you got your soul back," Dean finally says.

There's another loaded pause between them, one to add to millions throughout the years of their companionship. Sam feels ridiculous and exposed in his open stance, long legs spread out on the incline of sagging stairs. It's a guileless invitation and one he was unaware of until now. Sam pushes out of it and rubs the grit off his elbow, the itchy indents left on the thin skin, props them on his raised knees. "I think I must've always been looking. I just didn't know what it meant until now."

Head bowed, Sam flashes a glance at Dean and he's half obscured by the fringe of Sam's bangs. He's glad for the recent haircut, glad he's got his hiding place back. Dean's looking off to the side, lips pursed prettily, but he doesn't look mad. Just speechless.

Dean's saved from having to respond when a breeze of displaced air hits Sam's neck, a whisper of fluttering wings and the fine hairs on his arms standing on end in the tidal rush of crackling energy.

Dropping back on his elbows again, Sam twists his head back and sees Cas stock-still behind him on the porch. Cas throws a dark look in Dean's direction, glances down at Sam. "Hello," he says, simply.

~*~*~

It's difficult, reacquainting himself with Cas in reality. The air around the angel has none of that dream-like quality that Sam's grown accustomed to. And yet, neither is there any tangibility to the slouch-shouldered form. The cabin is steeped in heavy shadows that hang comfortably over the soft planes of the angel's face, the sharp clavicle poking out above the loosened collar of his shirt. For a creature of light, Castiel looks amazing in the darkness.

While Sam stares, Cas gazes through the dusty window, watching Dean at the grill with a familiar pensive quiet. "Perhaps I should not have come," Cas finally says.

Sam's mind is still on the exchange with Dean, but now, with Castiel here and maybe thinking the same thoughts Sam was thinking, things feel a little blurry. He's still piecing himself together, feels jumbled all of the time. "Hey, Cas?" Sam asks. "What would you say if I told you I wanted to fuck you when I didn't have a soul?"

Twisting his head on his neck, Castiel fixes his gaze on Sam and doesn't answer right away. Even through the gloom, Sam feels like every part of him is on display. He shifts uncomfortably against the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, lays one of his bare feet atop the other. Sam's tank top is clinging stickily to his torso, his jeans riding low on his hips and he can't help but wonder if Castiel appreciates it. Sam puts a lot of work into his body and he thinks if Castiel likes it, it's worth the effort.

"You weren't subtle about it," Cas finally tells him. "Even to one as unschooled in human sexuality as I, the evidence was obvious."

Sam feels his face heat up, a rush of warmth blushing his cheeks and neck.

"You knew no shame then," Cas states bluntly, finally turning his whole body towards Sam. "It was refreshing sometimes. You were less complicated. I understood you. And it was easy to feel superior, when you were little more than an animal."

A flash of sadness swamps Sam at the words and his gaze falls to his feet, he watches his toes curl with tension. "Is that why you didn't want Dean to put my soul back? You liked me better without it?"

" _No_ ," Cas growls so fiercely it shocks Sam, taking only one step forward, but closing the distance with his intensity alone. "No," he repeats in a calmer tone. "You must understand, Sam. Your soul has sustained much damage. And there is no guarantee that the wall will hold. Should it crumble, Dean is not the only party who will bear witness to your misery. As I said before, I was being selfish. Had your soul remained in Hell, at least then I could not see you suffer firsthand."

Sam's restraint isn't what it once was, which explains why he quickly closes the distance between them and grabs Cas into a hug. The body against his is stiff and unyielding, but it doesn't discourage him in the slightest. That's just how Cas is. Sam wraps his long arms around Cas' stiff shoulders, crushes his cheek against the thick spikes of the angel's hair and holds on. Warm, earthy scents rise up from Cas, like he's flown all over the world and picked up pieces of every continent and ocean.

They jerk an inch apart when the door crashes open, and both turn to stare at Dean framed in doorway, backlit by the sunny day. Dean's plump lips twist in a wry smirk, "You really know how to make a fella feel special, Sammy. You flirt with _all_ the pretty boys now?"

~*~*~

Sam and Dean eat their dinner on the front porch, washed in the fading sunlight on one side and shaded by the awning on the other. There's a rickety old table on the porch that they seat themselves at while Cas leans against the railing beside them, hands shoved carelessly in the pockets of his trench coat. When Dean forks up a slice of grill-blackened beef and waggles it enticingly in Cas' face, "Come on, your vessel's a fan of beef, right?" it's like a small peace offering. The angel hums around the fork in his mouth, eyes closing briefly in appreciation.

Dean's damn good at barbeque, way better than when they were kids and he used to play around on the grill. Back then it was frozen burger patties or hot dogs, nothing half as good as this. Sam figures he must have improved during his time in suburbia, but he won't know for sure. Dean wouldn't appreciate him asking.

"So, how long before your angel buddies send up the Bat Signal and you have to take off?" Dean asks, eyes on his plate, forking up the crispy potatoes.

"We are regrouping from a battle right now. My lieutenants have been advised not to call me unless there's a matter of dire import," Castiel responds. He drags his hands out of his pockets and lets them hang at his sides. It's all kinds of awkward, like he's not quite sure what to do with himself under Dean's scrutiny.

"Lieutenants, huh? Check it out, Sammy. We got a bona fide general in our midst."

Sam winces at Dean's sarcastic tone, just barely refrains from kicking him under the table. Even Cas hasn't missed Dean's meaning, if his scowl is anything to go by.

"This was a stupid idea," Cas grumbles, directed at Sam. "I'll go."

Before the angel can flutter away, Dean's hand flies out to grip Cas' wrist, crushing the loose cuff of the trench. "Don't," Dean says, head tilted up to meet Cas' eyes for the first time since he arrived. "You should stay. I'll even try to stop acting like a total prick if you do."

For a second or two, Cas just stares back at Dean, as if to gauge his sincerity. His scowl lightens after a moment before he responds. "Don't fight your nature for my benefit."

"That was almost funny, Cas," Dean replies, withdrawing his hand and tossing a tentative smile up at the angel. "There might be hope for you yet."

"I'm gonna need a drink for this," Sam declares and stands, his chair scraping against the gritty floorboards of the porch. He's still hoping that whatever tension there is between Dean and Cas can be resolved tonight, but he doesn't know if it's for their benefit or his own.

~*~*~

Sam and Dean share a bottle of the Johnny Walker and only get halfway through before Cas polishes off his second. The angel is cracking open his third bottle, and still he looks sober as ever. Sam and Cas sit together on the small couch while Dean hunkers on a dining room chair across the coffee table, shuffling cards for the poker game they're playing. It's all too normal, friends unwinding over whiskey and cards on a Friday night. Even if Sam weren't on his way to drunk, vision just starting to get hazy, it would feel surreal.

"This is more fun when there's something to wager," Dean mentions, dealing a hand of 5 Card Stud. They only had to explain the rules to Cas once and he's trounced them every hand since. Poker face is an understatement. Dean even accused him of cheating by reading their minds. "Let's up the stakes. Strip Poker anyone?"

Sam huffs and almost chokes on his whiskey. When he meets Dean's eyes across the table, he sees an amused dare staring back at him. "That would be a great idea, Dean, if you were wearing anything other than a pair of jeans. You're already practically naked."

"And that would be a problem, Sam, if I planned on losing."

"Right. I guess I was the only one paying attention when Cas wiped the table with you for the last ten hands," Sam smirks and takes a sip straight from the bottle.

"He's a filthy cheater," Dean declares with a pout that makes him look seventeen again. His brother has loosened up since dinner, whiskey relaxing the line of his bare shoulders.

"He's also wearing about twelve layers of clothes," Sam point out. At this point, both Sam and Dean turn to look at Cas and find him glugging down the dregs of his third bottle. His pursed lips are kissing the bottle wetly, his skin starting to pinken up a little and when he pulls off, he takes a deep breath and meets their eyes a little blearily.

"Dude, I've never seen anyone kill a full bottle of Johnny in under two minutes. I don't know whether to be impressed or scared," Dean observes, but there's a laugh in his voice. "Aren't you hot, Cas? It's, like, a hundred degrees in here and you're dressed for a Midwest winter."

"I don't register temperatures as humans do," Cas tells them and reaches down to uncap one of the other full bottles lined up on the floor by the couch.

Sam thinks that the sheen on his forehead is calling Cas a dirty liar. "Then why are you sweating?"

"Am I?" Castiel looks vaguely surprised. The angel's free hand swipes a little at his forehead. "Oh. I'll stop then."

"You can do that?" Sam asks, a little fascinated.

"I regulate the physical responses of my vessel with my will. Perhaps I have begun to perspire because I have withdrawn enough of my grace to better experience inebriation."

"If that's the case, then just shed a few layers," Dean suggests, smiling quietly. "Don't want you sobering up before the party is over."

"Is this a party?" Cas queries curiously.

"Every night with Dean Winchester is a party, Cas. Didn't you know?" Dean gives his cocky reply. "Lose the trench coat and blazer. It'll cool you down some."

~*~*~

With their bottle finished, Dean chugs down two glasses of water, four aspirin and faceplants on the sagging mattress. Dean's flushed and sweating as he slips into slumber, arms crossed under the pillow and lips parted around heavy, even breaths. Sam brings over another glass of water and places it on the floor beside the bed, concerned about dehydration and heat exhaustion. As he straightens back up to look down on his sleeping brother, Sam finds Cas suddenly beside him. Cas reaches out and touches two fingers to Dean's forehead. "He'll sleep peacefully now," Cas explains.

Too drunk for more whiskey, Sam switches to beer and stumbles out on the front porch. Castiel follows close behind him, far less swaggery, but looser than usual, more relaxed. He'd shed his coat and blazer at Dean's behest, rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows and there's an extra button undone. It's the closest to undressed Sam has ever seen him.

The angel's collarbone is on full display, two sharp lines under that long, pretty neck. A dark patch has formed at the small of Cas' back, sweat seeping through the too-heavy cotton. It makes Sam curious. For all of their interaction with angels, there is so much they still don't know.

Sam leans against the porch railing and watches Cas watching him. He carefully places his beer bottle on the rail and turns back to give the angel his full attention.

"Hey, Cas?" Sam asks, the 's' hissing out on his drink-heavy tongue.

"Hmm?" Cas asks back, but he's not looking at Sam's face, dark-blue eyes seeming to fall where the waist of his loose jeans hang low on his hips. Sam had peeled off his shirt an hour or so ago, used it to mop up the excess sweat on his face before crumpling it up and throwing it into a corner. He's all slick again, sweat beading up along his torso and sticking his hair to his neck.

"You said before that you regulate the physical responses of your vessel. How much are you able to feel when you withdraw your grace?"

Cas drags his eyes up to meet Sam's. "I am connected to this body. My true form is pure energy and it is poured into every molecule of my vessel. I can feel everything, I just process different sensations in different ways."

Sam considers the angel's word for a while. There are a million other questions he'd like to ask, that he _would_ ask if his mind wasn't swamped with drink and that niggling sense of hunger his body has been throwing at him since his soul was returned. He wonders if this is anything like what an angel experiences when it takes a vessel, this disconnect between spirit and flesh, a war between reason and animal instinct. For now his body wins, Sam reaches out and hooks his fingers into the waist of Cas' pants, gives a little tug. "Come here," he tells the angel when he gets a questioning look.

When Cas complies and steps forward, he's standing between Sam's spread legs. Sam gives another slight pull until the angel's pelvis is flush against his own. The connection has Sam's dick thickening against the fly of his jeans.

Sam doesn't watch for Cas' reaction, just stares into the hollow of his throat. They're both breathing heavier now, the added body heat has new sweat pricking up and tickling the cut of Sam's hipbones as he leans into the dark place beneath Cas' jaw. "Tell me how this feels," he commands in a low, half-choked voice.

Cas sucks in a shuddering gasp when Sam's lips fall against his skin. Eyelids fallen closed, Sam swipes his tongue over the stubble-rough skin under Cas' jaw. He tastes salty sweat before following up with a scrape of his teeth. Wrapping an arm around Cas' slender waist, Sam drags him closer, nuzzles and nips at the angel's neck with his hair falling around his face. It holds him in, making a dark secret place of where they're pressed together, so close it could be claustrophobic if it weren't so damn sexy.

"I can't describe this in a way you'll understand," Cas mumbles thickly, head falling against Sam's bare shoulder, breath huffing hotly between them. "It's too intense. There is a reason that so many angels fall for lust."

The angel is shaking now, body vibrating in a pleasant way against Sam's. There's a matching hardness butting against his crotch now, grinding closer.

"Did it feel like this when I touched you in my dreams?" Sam asks, licking a line up to Cas' earlobe. He sucks that soft bit of flesh into his mouth and worries his tongue over it, humming at the way Cas jerks and grabs roughly at his hips. They're slotted together perfectly now, hard cocks lined up and riding their slow churning thrusts.

"No," Cas answers, nudging his forehead against Sam's neck like a nuzzling cat. "I can't feel like this in my true form."

Sam pulls away just a little, breath heavy and fast, puffing out over the wet tracks he's left all over Cas' skin. "Do you want me to stop?"

Instead of answering the question, Cas lets his palms slide into the small of Sam's back, holding him loosely. "Dean would not like for us to be this way together. There is much I don't understand about him, but this I know to be true."

Sam can't help the way his hands clutch at Cas then, tighter, possessive, irritated that Cas can think of Dean even at a time like this. "Do you _want_ me to stop?" he repeats roughly in Cas' ear.

Cas takes a minute to respond, but doesn't pull away, just hangs his head in the crook of Sam's shoulder. "No."

Sam's reaction is fierce and quick, hand coming up to grab Cas' hair, tug his head back and crush their mouths together. His tongue slithers into the warm, slick space of Cas' mouth, over sharp teeth, licking his palette. Cas comes to life under the kiss, following Sam's dancing tongue with his own and running his hands so roughly over the skin of Sam's back that it burns a little.

Spinning them suddenly, Sam slams Cas back against the railing so hard that the beer bottle falls to the packed dirt with a hollow thunk. It barely registers with the way Cas is mewling into his mouth, tasting the way he does, responding so artlessly to the possessive sweep of Sam's hands all over his body.

Somehow, through all of the licks and nips and gasped breaths, Sam gets his hands on the fly of Cas' slacks and fumbles it open roughly. His body seems to be running on autopilot now, going after what it wants with a fervor Sam has never really experienced before. Sam shoves Cas' pants and underwear to mid-thigh and falls to his knees as easy as you please, like he's used to doing these things, like he can't help himself.

Cas makes all kinds of helpless noises, shameless and confused. Sam takes in the sight of the red, straining erection jutting toward his mouth like it's ready to make a home there. "Sam," Cas breathes out, cracked and broken. "Please."

Sam glances up, sees Cas lost and begging, lips puffy from their kissing, still shining wetly. His own cock twitches in response, a drop of precome pulsing out at the sight. Without any further teasing, Sam leans in and opens his mouth around the crown while Cas whimpers above him.

Cas is big enough that it shouldn't be so easy to take him almost all of the way down. Sam knows that his body has done this before, but he's never been present for it. For the first time, he gives himself wholly over to instinct, hand wrapping the base of Cas' cock as he pulls back with tight suction. He can taste come blurting out over his tongue and the natural salt of sweat.

It isn't long before they set a rhythm together, Sam sinking further down on each slide, Cas thoughtlessly pumping his hips while his fingers thread tightly in Sam's hair. He's so impossibly turned on, dick trapped hard and heavy in his pants as Cas starts fucking his mouth, tip popping past his relaxed gag reflex. He can't decide if he feels submissive or dominant right now, on his knees with a cock riding his face, breaking Cas to pieces and reducing him to this needy, human thing.

Sam doesn't know how long they've been doing this, but his jaw is starting to ache a little, throat feeling raw and bruised, mouth too full of cock and spit to swallow it all down. He feels it trickle past his spread lips, drip messily down his chin. It's filthy and so hot he could come in his pants just from this, but Cas is making these punched, hurt sounds like he can't quite get himself to let go.

Rather than open his own pants like he so desperately wants to, Sam slides his free hand around Cas' hip, gives his ass a quick squeeze before pressing the pad of his middle finger into the skin behind Cas' balls. Cas cries out then, hips stuttering and Sam pulls back to take the flood of come on the flat of his tongue. He can't quite swallow it all down and it leaks out in streams as Cas shoots pulse after pulse.

After the angel is finished, shivering with aftershocks, Sam pulls off with a wet pop and gasp. He's quick and clumsy with his fly before he takes himself in hand and strokes, desperate and too rough. Sam looks up at Cas' face, wrecked and ruined from the force of his first orgasm. It has Sam's dick swelling huge and hungry in his grip, has him falling back on his free hand as he thrusts into his fist. Cas' vision seems to clear a little as he watches Sam jerk himself off. When Cas reaches out hesitantly, like he's planning to put his hand on Sam's dick, it's all it takes to get Sam shooting his load. Thick ropes of come spatter Sam's hand and bare stomach, dripping into the thatch of hair at the base of his cock.

Sam came so hard his vision blurred, his whole body locked up with tension, his pulse stuttered. Shivering under the aftershocks and dizzy from lack of oxygen, Sam's eyes flutter back open. He's collapsed against the porch, propped on his elbows, body splayed and careless. Sam watches with a distant appreciation as Cas steps forward and crouches down. Sam's hips are bracketed by Cas' feet, the mess of Sam's pelvis just beneath Cas' haunches.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Cas asks him, reaching out to swipe a thumb through the come and spit still slicked over Sam's chin.

Sam laughs woozily and falls all the way to his back. "Am I okay? Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ that?"

Cas arches one eyebrow and his lips twitch up in a small smile. "Of the two of us, only one remains standing. Am I okay? Don't ask stupid questions, Sam."

"Technically you're crouching, not standing," Sam points out. "And don't even pretend that I didn't just rock your world."

"I won't," Cas responds, face and eyes all dark and serious in a way that Sam doesn't have the mental capacity to deal with right now. He still can't help the way his eyes skip guiltily away from Cas' direct stare.

"Come, Sam," Cas continues after a pause. "You should rest now."

"'Kay," he mumbles stupidly and lets Cas help him back to his feet. He sways a little on his feet and flushes in embarrassment when Cas tucks him back into his jeans and zips him up.

Sam is too large to fit comfortably on the couch, but his eyes fall shut after Cas eases him down. He's only vaguely aware of the cool sensation of Cas cleaning the sticky fluids off his skin with a brush of his angel mojo. And then he's slipping into a deep, heavy slumber.

~*~*~

In his dreams, Sam walks with Cas. He sits on the hood of the Impala. He skips stones across the flat surface of a shining lake. He walks in snow twelve inches deep. He scrapes tiredly through a hot desert. The landscapes change, sometimes something new, sometimes something old. What doesn't change is that Cas is always there, standing between him and the wall.


End file.
